PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will submit the proposed P3.767-trillion national budget for 2018 to Congress on July 24, the day he delivers his second State of the Nation Address, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said Friday.
He said the biggest chunks of the budget would go to education and infrastructure spending, and that this year would be the first time a President would be submitting his proposed budget on the day of the Sona.
“Why are we doing this? So we can have an early start for 2018,” Diokno told reporters.
“The 2018 proposed national budget, which we proposed and the President approved, has a total of P3.767 trillion, with the biggest allocation going to education and infrastructure development.”
The 2018 budget represents 21.6 percent of the projected gross domestic product next year and is 12.4 percent higher than the P3.35-trillion budget for 2017.
Education will be having the biggest chunk of the P3.767-trillion budget or a total of P691.1 billion, with the Department of Education getting P613.05 billion, the Commission on Higher Education P13.5 billion, and the State Universities and Colleges P64.6 billion.
The Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Transportation’s will receive P643.3 billion and P73.8 billion, respectively.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Department of National Defense will receive P172.3 billion and P145.0 billion, respectively, to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard and to boost the Philippine National Police’s law-enforcement activities.
Social services will receive P1.45 trillion, or 38.5 percent of the proposed budget, while the economic services sector will receive P1.15 trillion or 30.6 percent of the proposed budget.
Diokno expressed confidence that the tax reform package bill pending in Congress would be approved before the end of the year.